"OS X 10.9, which is internally codenamed 'Cabernet', will focus on various 'power-user' enhancements and take core features from iOS, according to our sources. Unlike operating system updates such as OS X Leopard and OS X Lion, OS X 10.9 will likely not be an overhauled approach to how the operating system feels and functions." Features for power users and features from iOS? Seems like an oxymoron. Still, if they manage to finally fix the Finder and Spaces, I'll be happy.

It's the XXI century, support for case sensitivity has been a given for 2 to 3 decades.

Um.. its default. Case insensitivity actually *requires* extra work because the underlying UTF8 (ASCII, or however you encode the characterset) uses a completely different and unrelated value to represent upper and lower case letters, for both Latin and certa)in non-Latin alphabets (greek and cyrilic come to mind.

And yet, it is an after thought in HFS+'s implementation,

I think that's a bit unfair. As someone else commented, it's actually backwardly compatible with the original floppy format - just like DOS FAT (also case insensitive in it's original format, and much more limited in actual file naming.)

to the point that some applications still can't function on a case sensitive HFS+ volume in 2013. That is sad. Even sadder that Apple still touts "case sensitivity" as a major feature for their "most advanced OS on earth."

That is down to the programmers. It's nothing to do with Apple. If the coders assumed something that wasn't true and failed to test their software correctly, why should that be Apples fault? I've only ever had three instances of this being an issue:

(1) Printer driver for an obscure Advent network printer (exchanged it for an Epson and that still works flawlessly.)
(2) Adobe Creative Suite (not sure which version, possibly last but one)
(3) Autodesk Sketchbook (app store) which they fixed fairly rapidly.

Of these, only Adobe was unsolvable - and that was only a demo anyway.

For a more detailed take on the issue, I will refer to Syracusa's review on ars technica:

Siracusa is extremely anal and likes things "just so". I listened to his podcast "Hypercritical" religiously, and still listen to the "Accidental Tech Podcast" which he contributes to. He knows his stuff, but he always takes the absolute extreme point of view. He's not a good candidate for a full rounded discussion of HFS+ really.

Having said that, he's spot on about some of the things he mentions, but I'm going to be honest and say some are just petty or pointless. A lot of what he is asking for is server class functionality that not even Windows clients implement.